Repairing Moderate and Heavy Damage - Beginning Photo Retouching and Restoration Using GIMP - page 155

4. We'll now copy this selection and paste it as a new layer (Control + C and

Control + V). It will appear as Floating Selection in the Layers palette. Right-click
the floating selection and select the To New Layer option from the drop-down
menu.

5. Rename the layer Patch. Using the Move tool (M), place it over the torn area.

6. Because the background's tone is lighter at the top and gradually darkens toward

the bottom, the repair patch will be lighter than the surrounding background.
Open the Levels dialog (Image Menu ➤ Colors ➤ Levels ) and move the midpoint
(gamma) slider to the right until the tone matches. The value should be around
0.90-0.92 (Figure 7-4 ). You might have to move the black-point slider very slightly
to the right. By now, you should have a good match, but experiment as needed.

Figure 7-4. Using Levels to match the tone of the patch to the surrounding background

7. Expand the Patch Layer's boundary size to the same as the image

(Right-click ➤ Layer to Image Size ). Using the Eraser tool (Shift + E) with a large,
soft brush (about 0.25 hardness), work along the edge of the Patch Layer to blend
it in further—be careful not to remove too much.

8. Now we'll create a patch for the smaller damaged areas. Make a selection of the

right side of the background, as shown in Figure 7-5 , using the Freehand Select
tool (F) with the Feather Edges radius set to 30-35 pixels.